Unpaid tickets contain hidden fees

Henry Negrette, campus safety and transportation agent, marked car tires on Tuesday afternoon in front of Miller Hall. Negrette said he gives three to five tickets a day and around 20 to 30 tickets a month. / photo by Veronica Garcia

Shelli DeRobertis
Staff Writer

Parking tickets need to be taken seriously. If they are not paid on time, the unpaid ticket fee quadruples, and may affect one’s ability to renew his or her driver’s license.

“If you get a ticket and don’t pay for it, it goes to $80,” said John Lentz, director of campus safety and transportation.

Lentz said the University of La Verne uses the same processing company that the police department does, which is the company that imposes the extra fees if the tickets are not paid on time.

“The appearance date is 21 days from the day of the citation.” Lentz said.

Students need to pay their fine within the allotted time or appeal the ticket to campus safety and then to the La Verne Police Department by the due date.

If the citation still remains unpaid after the due date set by the processing company, the Department of Motor Vehicles is notified.

“The only role the DMV plays is the third party,” said Armando Botello, of the media relations office for the California DMV.

“We let people pay through the DMV but it’s done through the courts,” Botello added.

Botello said the DMV does not impose any additional fee for an unpaid parking ticket, but the county the ticket was received in may add an extra processing fee.

What the DMV does do is attach the unpaid ticket notice to the person’s registration, and until the ticket is paid, that person cannot renew his or her license or registration.

Henry Negrette is the campus safety officer at the University and one of his jobs is to issue parking citations to individuals who are violating the parking rules.

“I average inward from three to five per day, about 20 to 30 tickets per month,” Negrette said.

Parking offenses include parking in a 20-minute zone or two-hour zone for longer than the time allowed, parking in a carpool or handicapped spot without the proper permits, or parking without a valid permit or without one at all.

The most expensive of these fines is parking in a handicapped space without the special permit it requires.

“It’s a $330 (fine) to park (illegally) in a handicap spot,” Negrette said.

He writes, on average, one citation a month for this particular violation.

If students forget their campus parking permit, they can go to the campus safety office for assistance.

“We can issue you a one-day permit and students can put it on their dashboard and that prevents tickets,” Negrette said.

Obeying the parking laws is the best prevention of receiving a ticket.

“Each ticket is $20 and all students need to do is pay $20 for their parking permit,” Negrette said.

For complete parking regulations, information is available on the University website in the campus safety section at www.ulv.edu.